United StatesEmotion Similes
Grade Levels: 5 - 8
Objectives
- Students will define and recognize similes.
- Students will write a poem using similes.
Procedures
- Prewriting:
- Define simile: a figure of speech that compares two objects using like, as, or than. (She is as red as a rose. I slept like a log.) The objects being compared are not similar except in one respect. The girl and the rose are unlike except they share a blushing quality. The tired boy and the log are different except for their inertia.
- Explain to students that they will write a poem based primarily on similes.
- Brainstorm on the blackboard for a list of words naming emotions.
- Provide the following structure for their poems.
The poem is a definition using all the senses and similes that the students make personal by using original detail, which reflects their lives and experiences.
Emotion is color. (This line is a metaphor.)
It sounds like...
It tastes like...
It smells like...
Emotion feels like...A sample:
Indifference is water-stained gray.
It sounds like hissing static on the radio.
It tastes like overcooked noodles.
It smells like a musty, closed attic room.
Indifference feels like a lukewarm bath in rusty water.
- Ask the students to pick a word of their own from those brainstormed on the blackboard and begin their own poem. (Encourage students to include onomatopoeia in the description of sound.)
- Have the students edit and shape their poems (adding specific original detail where appropriate, and writing their final copy on plain paper).
- Work individually with students.
- When the final copies are completed on unlined paper, ask students to read their poems aloud before collecting them.
Excerpted from Writing Process Activities Kit.
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